Questions are to be asked in Parliament about how a sex attacker jailed for raping an 89-year-old woman was able to strike again almost two decades later.

Questions are to be asked in Parliament about how a sex attacker jailed for raping an 89-year-old woman was able to strike again almost two decades later.

Hilland Matthews, 66, is due to be sentenced this week after he was convicted of sexually assaulting an elderly woman in Ipswich last year.

At a hearing at Ipswich Crown Court last month he admitted charges of sexual assault, sexual assault by penetration and trespass with intent to commit a sexual offence.

But Matthews had previously been convicted of a string of sex offences in South Wales dating back to the 1980s.

But because his convictions pre-dated the Sex Offenders’ Register it is believed he was not included on it.

The revelations led Caerphilly MP Wayne David to call for an investigation into what happened.

He vowed to table a question to the Home Office, saying: “This cannot be an issue that continually falls to the bottom of somebody’s in-tray.”

When Matthews’ latest victim was attacked in June 2011 he had only been living in the area for a short time, and it is understood police in Ipswich were unaware he presented a danger.

After he admitted the charges at Ipswich Crown Court on January 18, it emerged Matthews had a string of previous convictions in Wales, including for sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl, attempting to rape a 17-year-old girl and raping an 89-year-old widow in her bed.

Reports from the time show residents living in Matthews’ home village near Caerphilly had petitioned for his six-year jail sentence to be extended.

Cardiff Crown Court heard how Matthews, then 46 and from Bryn Aber in Abertridwr, broke into his elderly victim’s house in the early hours of March 25, 1992 and ransacked it.

When he discovered her asleep in bed he raped her twice.

Patrick Harrington, prosecuting, said at the time: “She told him to leave her alone but he put his hand over her mouth to stifle her cries.

“Understandably she was terrified, and told him that if he didn’t take his hand from her mouth she would die.”

On October 12, 1992, Matthews admitted rape and was jailed for six years but was released in 1996 after serving just four.

A year later a requirement for sex offenders to notify police forces of certain information came into being with the Sex Offenders Act 1997.

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 introduced provisions so that notification requirements could be imposed even if the offence was committed before the act came in.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) - which takes the lead on information-sharing between forces - said Mathews’ presence on the register was a question for individual forces to answer.

But a spokeswoman for Suffolk Police, which covers Ipswich, said she was unable to say if Matthews was on the register due to “data protection”.

She added that no complaints had been made to Suffolk Police about its role in Matthews’ arrest and conviction.

A spokesman for South Wales Police, which covered the Caerphilly area until police boundary changes in 1996, said information had been shared “in accordance with procedures that were in place at that time”.

He said: “Matthews received a prison sentence in 1992 following his conviction for offences which he committed in South Wales.

“Prior to his release in 1996 to an address in another force area information was shared between the relevant authorities in accordance with procedures that were in place at that time.”

Mr David said he would table a question in parliament asking why police in Ipswich had not known about Matthews’ past.

He said: “With the advance of modern technology the transfer of information is relatively easy and straightforward.

“If people have got a record and are judged to be still a potential risk there is still a need to share information on a confidential basis.”

Asked if he thought there should be an investigation, he said: “I think so, yes.”

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